Has SeaWorld rejected Branson’s demand to renounce live captures?

Sir Richard Branson quickly responded to our recent call to end his affiliation with captive facilities by issuing his own ultimatum to dolphinaria.

He has asked dolphinaria the world over to pledge to end live captures of whales and dolphins else Virgin will have nothing to do with them. Since his call for the pledge we have been monitoring the various facilities for a response.

It would seem that SeaWorld may have rejected his approach, as they continue to claim that they need to collect from the wild.

The following statement was live on their website as of 09:30 GMT 4th March

View SeaWorld’s statement on capturing wild marine mammals as pdf

As you can see it clearly states that SeaWorld believes “…collection from the wild remains an important part of the management of species in human care. The Marine Mammal Protection Act, one of the federal laws that govern human interaction with marine mammals in this country [USA], has a provision for collecting wild animals for public display.”

So Sir Richard, is Virgin going to drop SeaWorld? It seems that SeaWorld don’t see eye-to-eye with your request.

Please let Sir Richard Branson know that whale and dolphin captivity is a dying industry and he has to be part of the solution, not part of the problem